


raw when new

by madanach



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Developing Friendships, Drinking, Gen, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-16 22:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5843209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madanach/pseuds/madanach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hamilton says “For God’s sake, Jefferson,” in a drunken lilt that Thomas <i>knows</i> comes from different shores, and it seeps through Thomas’ thick thoughts with a slow and confusing air. </p><p>“Keep up, Hamilton,” he says, and is for a moment a third party removed from the scene, simply watching Sc. of Sta. Thomas Jefferson extend what could be, in different company, construed as a white flag to Sc. of th Tres. Alexander Hamilton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	raw when new

**Author's Note:**

> look, i know bedsharing has been done to excess, but to that i answer [footage not found]

He will blame it on James, later.

Thomas has taken well-earned rest from his hosting duties, choosing instead to wait off to the side and let James remind him of names and faces, titles and estates and occupations and postings and all the other things that become interchangeable once they are taken away from the forefront of Thomas’ mind. James is usually happy to humor him, a trait that Thomas finds particularly agreeable and quite rare. Tonight, however, he seems restless. 

“Listen, Thomas,” James says, clapping him on the shoulder, “As much as I love to hear your soliloquies, there are an upsetting amount of people to greet today. Why don’t you go talk to,” he pauses, looking around. “Someone else.”

Thomas snorts. “Someone else being who? Huntington? Clinton? God save me from their rambling.”

“Where’s John?” James asks, attempting to look over a woman’s particularly tall wig. “You invited John, I’m sure.”

“He is having trouble with his stomach again, the poor man,” Thomas sighs. “I’m sure he’s with Abigail upstairs.”

“Well,” James says, “I’m sure you are aware of the solution to this problem.”

“What?” Thomas asks.

“Make more _friends_.”

Thomas wrinkles his nose.

James rolls his eyes, but then his features light up, something behind Thomas catching his eye. “Fear not, I have found you a partner.”

“Who?” Thomas says with interest, turning, and then —

Oh, no.

“You did say the party was dull,” James says with a wicked smile.

Thomas twists, looking scandalized beyond belief. “James, why in God’s name would I want to speak with _Hamilton_?”

James laughs. “Trust me.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Look at the table by him.”

“James,” Thomas says irritatedly. “I live here.”

“Thomas,” James says with exasperation, and spins Thomas around with a hand on his shoulder. “ _Look_ ,” he says, pointing.

“I see a witless pretender, trespasser in our cabinet, dirtying my furniture with his ugly choice of waistcoat,” Thomas says.

“You are unbelievable,” James says. “That is his third glass of wine.”

It takes Thomas a moment. He blinks, and then breaks out into a grin. “Oh.”

“Oh,” James agrees, shaking his head at the gleeful look on Thomas’ face. “Now, Thomas, don’t make me regret this suggestion.”

“If you didn’t mean for me to follow your guidance, dear James, you shouldn’t have given it.” Thomas gulps the last vestiges of his wine, dropping the empty glass on a side table with a smirk. “Remind me which foolish tactic Hamilton was forwarding in our most recent meeting?”

James sighs. “He wants formal trade relations with the British. Jay is championing, remember?”

“He wishes to return our hard-won fealty with a satin bow and an expression of regret that it fit poorly,” Thomas says with disgust. “My God. How he came to become Secretary, I will never understand.”

“He’s quite brilliant,” James says mildly. Thomas frowns with such exaggerated upset that it only takes James a few seconds to break, snorting into the rim of his wineglass and then smiling.

“He is a wasted genius,” Thomas concedes. “Perhaps if we had known him in his youth this would have been avoided.”

“By all accounts he was as distressingly steadfast when he was young as he is now,” James says. “Unless you would have sailed to the West Indies?”

Thomas’ expression of horror makes James laugh so hard the women behind him turn to stare.

“Go pester Hamilton,” James says, still smiling widely. “At least you’ll be hiding in the corner with company.”

“ _Company_ ,” Thomas says with distaste.

James’ eyes crinkle up. “You have kept me from our president for too long,” he calls, backing away with admittedly-impressive grace. “It’s your party, Thomas!”

Thomas watches him go with a grin that only disappears once he realizes he has to go _converse_. With _Hamilton_.

“Ugh,” he says under his breath, and goes to procure more wine.

 

In the end, he approaches Hamilton’s seat at the side with a glass of whiskey in each hand and a sense of annoyance that begins even before he is within earshot. Hamilton is speaking rather animatedly to Dolley Madison, who, nodding and smiling, looks absolutely miserable.

“Dolley!” he calls, forcing himself to smile. “My dear, where have you been?”

Dolley laughs as Hamilton reels back from the interruption, standing up and offering her hand. Thomas shuffles his whiskeys to the table by their side and takes it, an exaggerated bow and kiss making her giggle and Hamilton frown harder.

“Your fellow Secretary has been regaling me with tall tales,” she says, quirking her eyebrow. “He says you are quite the firebrand on the cabinet floor.”

Thomas shoots a glare at Hamilton before responding. “I’m sure his memory has been embellished somewhat,” he says. 

“You would like me to think so, I’m sure,” Dolley says, amused and unconvinced. “Tell me, where have you spirited my husband away?”

“He has gone in search of the President, I believe,” Thomas says. “Can you imagine? Somehow he tired of my company.”

“One wonders why,” Hamilton says dryly from the couch. Dolley puts a hand to her mouth to stop an undignified snort.

“Ignore the good Secretary,” Thomas says through gritted teeth. He suddenly regrets putting the whiskey down.

Detecting his aggravation, Dolley pushes close and kisses his cheek, a warm hand on his wrist. “He’s quite the firebrand himself,” she says lowly. “I understand why you speak of him with such fervor.”

Thomas, at a loss, can manage only a smile before she whisks past him in search of her husband. 

“Fervor?” Hamilton says with interest.

For a brief moment, Thomas forgets that he is in a relaxed social setting chatting with the Secretary of the Treasury, and thinks he is in Hell. 

“Fervor and exasperation,” he corrects, dropping onto the sofa next to Hamilton. “Hasn’t anyone taught you it’s rude to eavesdrop?”

Hamilton rolls his eyes. “I haven’t had quite enough wine to ignore candid discussion of my character, regardless of how quiet she believed she was.”

“Hmm,” Thomas says. “Yes, you must fix that.” He picks up the whiskey and presses it into Hamilton’s chest, liquid sloshing dangerously close to his white collar.

“Are you offering me a drink or staining my clothing,” Hamilton says, but takes the drink regardless. “Thank you. I think.”

“You’re welcome,” Thomas says primly. 

Hamilton takes a sip, then nods his head. “A fine quality, though whiskey is not often my drink of choice.”

Thomas retrieves the other glass. “Surely not, or you would have thought twice about robbing us of it through your clumsy excise.”

The imbalance of his start to attention as well as his rapidly-blinking eyes betray the wine in Hamilton’s bloodstream, but his voice sounds just as Thomas is used to hearing it, at cabinet meetings with fury barely hidden behind his tongue. “Those taxes were key to the success of our Bank, and if you don’t realize that then you’re a fool.”

Thomas exhales loudly. “Lord, don’t start. Every single man and woman in this room has heard your ranting before.”

“You seek me out with spirits, insult my work to my face and then take offense that I called your bluff?” Hamilton laughs incredulously. “A coward as well as a fool, then.”

“I am a coward?” Thomas raises his eyebrows over the lip of his glass, taking a significantly larger drink than he would under different circumstances. “Aye, and you, who wants to go crying back to Father England, you are a brave man.”

Hamilton snorts. “Trade is hardly a colonial relationship.”

“We should not be entertaining the notion in the first place,” Thomas says sharply. “Mere years since we gained our independence and you’re glad to shake hands? After all the blood they shed?”

Hamilton’s mouth goes thin. “Whose blood was that, honorable Secretary?”

“Us!” Thomas says without thinking. “Americans!”

He will kick himself, later, for taking the bait.

Hamilton launches into a tirade of war and casualty and a craven South. Thomas, temple beginning to ache, takes another drink. 

 

Thomas fully intends to spend precious few minutes of his time engaged in any manner with Hamilton, but his treatise on the war leads into an impassioned critique of Thomas’ own Declaration, and then Thomas is obliged to respond at length with commentary on Hamilton’s Cabinet position — as well as his published writings, his parentage, and the length of his waistcoat — and by that time both of them have finished their drinks and are red-cheeked and ready for more. Hamilton goes to retrieve more liquor. Thomas almost falls off the couch attempting to trip him. The curse Hamilton calls him as he hurries away is more than enough to make the ladies and gentlemen still flittering about the room turn and shift uncomfortably.

Thomas is daydreaming about poisoning Hamilton’s whiskey glass when James approaches, attempting fruitlessly to be inconspicuous.

“What are you _doing_ ,” he hisses, sitting down next to Thomas. “My God, I left you more than an hour ago.”

Thomas starts. “Why are you upset? I’m speaking with Hamilton.”

“I _know_ ,” James says emphatically. “It’s scaring your guests.”

Thomas begins to laugh, then stutters to a halt as James’ expression doesn’t change.

“You’re being serious,” he says. 

“Yes!” James says. “I thought you’d be at each others throats within minutes.” 

“I mean,” Thomas says, “We _are_ ,” but James interrupts him by leaning noticeably to the side, staring at the empty glass on the table behind him.

“Thomas,” he says carefully. “How are you feeling?”

Thomas blinks at him. 

“If Hamilton is driving you to drink I will have him thrown out,” James says, in a voice that means he will do nothing of the sort and Thomas is being unreasonable. “Is this a good idea? You’re hosting tonight, I’m sure you’re aware.”

Thomas shifts uncomfortably. “I have done everything etiquette deems I must.”

James groans. “You are impossible. Half of your guests have left without speaking with you, Thomas! They fear to approach lest the little lion bite off their head!”

“It’s not my fault Hamilton breeds dislike,” Thomas mumbles.

“Hamilton is not the problem here,” James says severely. “You could at least show those who are sleeping here to their rooms.”

“They’ve seen them already,” Thomas huffs. “God, I do hate parties.”

“I know you do,” James says, but he’s distracted by something behind Thomas; that something turns out to be Hamilton, a glass of wine in each hand. He stares at James in confusion.

“You’re in my seat,” he says blankly. 

James glares at both Hamilton and Thomas in turn. “No, by all means,” he says, standing up and gesturing facetiously at the couch. Hamilton plops down immediately, sarcasm wasted.

“Here,” he says, holding out one of the glasses to Thomas. Thomas accepts it and studiously ignores James’ incredulous expression.

“This is very odd,” James says.

Though they will deny it later, Thomas and Hamilton turn towards James with identical motions and, in twin tones, say, “What?” 

James stares at them for a moment longer. 

“Perhaps you’d like a drink, Madison,” Hamilton says. He doesn’t offer his own.

“Perhaps I might,” James says, shaking his head. “You,” he says, pointing to Thomas, “Will thank my wife for showing that horrid British merchant out in your stead. And you,” he says, pointing to Hamilton, before changing his mind and pointing back to Thomas, “Both of you will greet our President before he retires.”

Thomas exhales loudly. “Fine.”

Hamilton laughs. “Very impressive, Madison! A word from you and the good Secretary rolls over.”

“I am _leaving_ ,” James says sternly, as Thomas sputters, “How _dare_ you—“

James, true to his word, leaves. Thomas kicks Hamilton in the shin; the cruel names he is called in response are a small price to pay for Hamilton’s yelp.

 

The guests begin to filter out soon after James leaves, a happening that both Thomas and Hamilton notice and choose to ignore. A tiny flicker of guilt appears in Thomas’ chest each time he sees someone walk towards the corner they seem to have claimed and think better of it, but the wine has robbed him of any desire to entertain, and anyway, Hamilton’s impassioned speech is keeping him blissfully occupied.

 _Conveniently_ , he edits himself. Blissful is much too kind of a word to relate to Hamilton.

Steadfast as ever, James brings Washington around once the room is emptier than not and has settled down to a tired hum. Both Thomas and Hamilton forget that they are holding glasses and have to turn away to set them down.

“This was a beautiful gala, Thomas,” Washington says with a smile, shaking Thomas’ hand with a firm grip. “I have to congratulate you again on your estate. Were you not such a political mind, you would surely have been a respected architect.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Thomas says, careful to hit each vowel. “To host you is always my utmost pleasure.”

James snorts at _host_. Washington politely ignores him.

“Secretary Hamilton,” he says instead, letting go of Thomas’ hand. Thomas attempts to wipe it on his trousers surreptitiously; when did he begin to sweat?

“Good to see you, Mr. President,” Hamilton says, looking as uncomfortable as Thomas feels. James looks exceedingly smug.

“I’m glad to see you have found,” Washington hesitates, “Common ground. With Thomas.”

“Surely not,” Hamilton says indignantly, as Thomas says, “I doubt that highly.” The synchronization makes Washington, if anything, more bewildered.

“Well,” Washington says after a moment. “I believe I should head upstairs.”

“Of course,” Hamilton says, nodding frantically.

“Good night, sir,” Thomas says, digging a fingernail into the pad of his thumb until it stings.

They both drop back onto the couch and bristle as James ushers Washington away, Washington’s “What was _that_?” the last thing they can hear before he exits out of earshot.

An uncomfortable silence ensues. Hamilton shifts in his seat.

“Surely it is not _that_ ridiculous to assume we can hold a conversation,” he says, bafflement written across every line of his features. 

“We are grown men,” Thomas agrees, before realizing he is agreeing with Hamilton and immediately stopping himself.

“We’ve had amiable cabinet meetings before,” Hamilton says.

“Have we?” Thomas asks. “I’m hard-pressed to think of one.”

Hamilton sits up straighter. “And whose fault is that?”

“Yours,” Thomas says clearly. 

Predictably, they are the very last to leave.

 

In the end, it is well past midnight when they stagger to their feet, both slow and blinking with drink. Thomas is stuck between the obvious indignity of getting drunk with _Hamilton_ and the strange lightness it somehow brought, the way they both seem to have tired of calling each other names and fell into some odd, sociable rhythm of explanation and disagreement. 

“You are much more tolerable when I am drunk,” Hamilton mumbles, extending a hand as Thomas sways on his feet, almost toppling back into the couch.

“I’m fine,” Thomas says, watching the gap between his mind and his body grow wider with every second as he continues to prop himself up against Hamilton. Hamilton snorts but shows his own reluctance to move, looking back at Thomas after every couple of steps to confirm direction.

Hours of sitting have ruined Thomas’ balance; it’s as if he is wearing a ball and chain. “Left,” he mumbles when Hamilton comes to a split corridor, then nods wearily when Hamilton looks up with alarm at the hallway leading upstairs.

“If this staircase is my doom,” Hamilton says slowly, “I will take every measure necessary to ensure you die with me.”

Thomas coughs, says, “Die at your leisure, Hamilton,” and pushes him forward.

The stairs do not conquer them, though Thomas has to lean against the wall about halfway. Hamilton waits for him with an expression that tries desperately for impatience, but once he reaches the top he falls against the bannister with such force Thomas wonders for a moment if he’s fainted.

“Are you alive?” Thomas says.

“Ugh,” Hamilton responds, pushing away.

His course is straight but his steps waver, faltering to a slower rhythm and then speeding up at the acquisition of a firmer target. Thomas’ feet are so, so heavy; all he wants to do is take off his clunky shoes, and then maybe, through some unclear mysticism, his thoughts will stop being so slow.

Hamilton stops in front of a door, swaying uncertainly. Thomas shakes his head.

“I don’t remember where I was staying,” Hamilton says in a thick whisper.

“Our dear President,” Thomas says, and pushes at Hamilton’s side ungently. He had meant for his words to be the precessor to a witticism but it seems to have abandoned him, lost in his foyer with the French wine and the rest of his carefully-collected dignity. 

“This?” Hamilton says at the next door. “Ah.” The door is askew, just enough for the men to catch a glimpse of a woman’s back and a man’s arm, curved gently into each other in the moonlight.

“Assuredly not,” Thomas says, doing his best to sound disdainful. His efforts are lost on Hamilton, who staggers doggedly forward. 

“Here?”

“No.” Thomas wipes his forehead with one overheated sleeve and considers leaving Hamilton to sleep in the hallway. His bed calls.

“Good God, Jefferson,” Hamilton says in exasperation, having reached the end of the hallway and turned to the next, lined with the same clean wooden doors and lit bronze sconces. “Why one man needs such space, I’ll never know.”

Thomas looks down the hallway with trepidation. “I enjoy entertaining,” he says, unconvinced.

Hamilton steps back onto a foot, heavily, then rights himself. “Bald-faced lie,” he pronounces clearly, ignoring Thomas’ start and narrowed eyes. “Where am I going?”

“You are going nowhere,” Thomas says harshly. After a quick estimation of the success of a spin on his heel, he starts back down the hallway, holding his head as high as his weary muscles let him.

“What!” Hamilton whispers loudly behind his back. “Jefferson!” he says, sharper, and Thomas halts where he stands, craning his neck towards the bedrooms to ascertain if Hamilton’s indiscretion has woken any of his guests. Though he hears nothing, he still closes his eyes for a quick moment and prays to God that wine and food mean everyone sleeps too soundly to find himself and Hamilton out in this state. His legs feel leaden.

“You can’t leave me here,” Hamilton whispers. His voice, though back down to an appropriate tone, creeps dangerously close to _stern_ , to the weak mimicry of Washington that Thomas has caught him using when fervor and repetition don't finalize his ends. Thomas would reprimand him for it, had he the words. 

He doesn’t, however, and Hamilton says “For God’s sake, Jefferson,” in a drunken lilt that Thomas _knows_ comes from different shores, and it seeps through Thomas’ thick thoughts with a slow and confusing air. 

“Keep up, Hamilton,” he says, and is for a moment a third party removed from the scene, simply watching Sc. of Sta. Thomas Jefferson extend what could be, in different company, construed as a white flag to Sc. of th Tres. Alexander Hamilton. 

Hamilton blinks at him with owlish eyes, seemingly as stunned as his own self. Thomas, again, prays to God.

“Keep _up_ ,” Thomas says again. He _will_ leave Hamilton in the hallway if he continues to protest, he tells himself. Hamilton will sleep propped against the bannister, and their President will emerge in the morning to the sight, and perhaps then he will be expelled from the Cabinet and Thomas will live the rest of his life in peace. 

Hamilton shuffles hesitantly behind him, his steps too heavy and too loud. Thomas bites his lip to stop a sigh of disappointment. 

Though Thomas’ quarters are just at the opposite end of the hall, his aching legs take their time getting him there, and Hamilton has drawn level with him by the time they reach his door. Thomas considers warning him against — against. Against anything excessively Hamiltonian.

Furious at the wine that has stolen both his grace and his wit, he shoves the door with his shoulder and prays that Hamilton can’t still smell the drink on his breath.

Hamilton only gets a step into the room before stopping in his tracks. Thomas does his utmost to ensure the door closes quietly behind them.

“What now?” Thomas asks, turning to Hamilton’s stock-still form.

Hamilton exhales. “What in God’s name have you done to the bed?”

Thomas looks at him. 

“I’ve put it in the hallway,” he says.

“Yes, I see that,” Hamilton says patiently. “Pray tell _why_.”

Thomas’ head begins to throb.

“It fit,” he says testily. “Are you finished with your inquiries, honorable Secretary?”

“It fit?” Hamilton’s voice grows strained. “You put your bed in the hallway because it _fit_?”

“I’ll put _you_ in the hallway,” Thomas says, as Hamilton hisses, “Do you have no respect for design, or architecture, or _sense_ ,” and then the door creaks open.

“Mr. Jefferson?” someone says.

Thomas feels his heart plummet to somewhere behind his hipbones. Hamilton looks like he has smelled something particularly rank. 

“Get in the bed,” Thomas says shortly.

Hamilton looks at him as if he had been caught strangling small animals, which makes his quick acquiescence to Thomas’ orders somewhat less satisfying. He crawls onto the bed, dragging his shoes across the bedspread with carefully manufactured disgust. Thomas begins to plot possible early morning scenarios for the honorable Secretary: ice and water, small spiders, a bedpan full of — well.

At the door is one of his older cooks, taking over for little Moll who, Thomas remembers now, is sick with some stomach affliction. She refrains courteously from looking over his shoulder. “Just wanted to make sure everything’s alright, sir,” she says.

Thomas smiles tightly, thinking of Hamilton on the bed behind him, watching. “Just fine,” he says. “A successful evening.”

She nods up at him. “Here if you need anything, sir. Same for your guest.”

He blanches but she’s already backed away, a lone circle of candlelight ghosting down the hallway. He realizes that he should have said good night. Hamilton will notice that he didn’t say good night.

“You are an utterly distasteful human being,” Hamilton says as Thomas turns back to him.

“Grow up, Alexander.” Thomas says, ignoring his daggered gaze and curled lip. He frowns and closes the door behind him, then kicks off his shoes, sighing with relief as his beleaguered toes are finally allowed to breathe. 

“Alexander?” Hamilton says. “No ‘honorable Secretary’?”

“You are in my bed, I may call you whatever I wish,” Thomas says. His coat is a weight off his shoulders, his shirts and cravat likewise. Hamilton watches him with distaste.

“I shall call you Macduff, then,” Hamilton says. 

“You shall _not_ ,” Thomas says severely. “Take off your clothes.”

Hamilton turns up his nose. “I shall not,” he says, mimicking Thomas’ voice.

“You shall,” Thomas says. “It is June and you are in Virginia. I won’t have you dying of heatstroke in my bed.”

The grin Hamilton gives him is much too close to _alligator_ for comfort. Thomas ignores the hair that stands up on the back of his neck. 

“Dear Thomas,” Hamilton says, “Have you forgotten that I’m an immigrant?”

“God help me,” Thomas mutters. He strips off his breeches with misplaced severity and kneels down by his clothes chest before Hamilton can grin at him any longer. 

“Really, Virginia is positively chilly compared to Nevis,” Hamilton says. The word sounds rusty, unused; he never learned to speak it as the mainland did, or may not have even known there was a difference. His drunken tongue curls around the vowels so languidly Thomas can almost see it.

Suddenly furious, Thomas pulls a nightshirt over his head roughly and stares at the wall. Perhaps if he strangles Hamilton, Washington will pardon him for foreseeable circumstances. 

“Take off your clothes,” Thomas says through gritted teeth. “Get in bed, and then, by the grace of God, be _quiet_.”

He hears Hamilton scoff. “As you wish, Macduff.”

Then, though, as Thomas remains on the floor in front of his clothes chest and focuses on the concentrated ache in his kneecaps as opposed to how much he’d like to drown Hamilton in his washbasin, the rest of the room goes quiet. 

The sound of rustling from the bed betrays Hamilton’s quiet concession. Thomas breathes in and out. 

Hamilton grunts softly, then says, “Will you allow me to place my things in your office, or is trespassing a death sentence as well?”

The idea of Hamilton in his sacred space makes Thomas slightly sick to his stomach, but he plucks his own clothes from the floor behind him and says, “Go where you will. You are a guest.”

There’s a soft thump as Hamilton slips off the other side of the bed. Thomas picks out an extra nightshirt. 

“That is… generous,” Hamilton says when Thomas tosses it onto the bedspread between them. He sounds exceedingly suspicious. “You’re being a very accommodating host.”

Leave it to Hamilton to make _accommodating host_ seem like an insult. “I _enjoy_ entertaining,” Thomas says sharply. Maybe Hamilton will believe him this time.

Hamilton laughs, quick and unexpected; Thomas almost jumps. 

“You do not,” Hamilton says. “You hate parties. You grit your teeth during introductions and spend the best portion of your time in the corner whispering to poor James. You spent the evening debating with _me_ , and you hate me.”

The _audacity_ —

“Is this silk?” Hamilton asks with interest, pulling Thomas’ nightshirt over his head and plucking at the fabric. Thomas’ brain, still grasping for an appropriate reaction to the succession of demeaning and — and _invasive_ insults Hamilton had suffered him with, doesn’t register his question in the slightest.

“I do hate you,” Thomas says lamely. He stares at the silk still caught around Hamilton’s neck, at the discoloration around his ribs that he can’t distinguish as a rash or a scar. Sedentary life filled out his stomach and his hips, but it’s not hard to remember that he had been a soldier.

When he lets the nightshirt down around his chest, Thomas can’t help but snort.

“You look like a child,” Thomas says. 

“Forgive me for lacking your stature,” Hamilton says peevishly. “I don’t generally have the habit of wearing women’s gowns to bed.”

“That was a gift, so watch your words,” Thomas says. He pulls back the bedspread and stares in trepidation at his mattress. There doesn’t seem to be quite enough space to fit the requisite mile between himself and the honorable Secretary. 

“A gift?” Hamilton says. “From John?”

Thomas snaps his head up. “You will sleep on the floor, Hamilton.”

Hamilton grins. “What happened to Alexander?”

“Bite your tongue, _Alex_ ,” he says, the way he’d say _whore_ , or _Federalist_.

Hamilton presses his lips together and says nothing.

“Get in bed,” Thomas says lowly. It feels like an age ago that he made that most grievous of mistakes in offering Alexander Hamilton a glass of wine. 

For a moment it looks like Hamilton is going to challenge him somehow, with his brows set and his hands curled into loose fists and his mouth curved up into a bitter smirk, but all he does is make Thomas wait; six long seconds, and then a sigh. Hamilton giving up, it turns out, just looks like him crawling into Thomas’ bed. 

The sight lodges itself in Thomas’ brain with the illogical severity of the drunk. Hamilton looks up.

“Well?” he says.

Thomas, realizing belatedly that the moonlight is why their vision is so clear, chooses to sweep across the room instead of answer. The curtain covers the room in blessed darkness. 

When faced with a pitch-black room that has Alexander Hamilton at the other end, Thomas finds himself decidedly reluctant to cross. 

“Have you gotten lost?” Hamilton asks after a moment, amused.

Thomas frowns into the dark.

“I have decided to let James deal with you next time,” he says, feeling his way awkwardly across the room. “How he stood you long enough to craft the Federalist, I will never know.”

Hamilton hums. “Madison refuses to debate with me. I much prefer a good fight.”

Thomas snorts, knees knocking against the edge of the bed. “Careful, Alexander. We wouldn’t want to let on that you enjoy my company.”

“Enjoy your company!” Hamilton sounds scandalized by the very thought. “Pigs may fly.” He flinches as Thomas’ bare feet accidentally scrape against his thigh but then rights himself, pulling enough away that they can find a comfortable split of the bed. “No, I just meant to suggest that I enjoy cataloguing your flaws.”

Thomas presses his face into the pillow. “Such coincidence! I happen to have a catalog of my own.”

“I’m flattered,” Hamilton says dryly. “Let me publish it, and I will show the world that I have created of Thomas Jefferson a small, spiteful man.”

Thomas kicks him. Hamilton cackles.

“Spiteful,” he says pointedly. 

“Impossible,” Thomas says. “Infuriating.”

“All compliments,” Hamilton retorts.

“In no one’s world but your own,” Thomas says.

“Possibly,” Hamilton allows.

Thomas waits for him to continue. The silence extends itself. Finally —

“Thomas,” Hamilton tests. “A decidedly grand name. I wonder how you acquired it.”

“Alexander,” Thomas responds. “Fit for a tyrant.” He yawns and looks at the shadows next to him. Despite his best, weary efforts, he can’t make out Hamilton’s face. “You must have gotten lost along the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all this is my first try at hamilton fic!! this fandom is so active it's kinda scary to write anything for it, here's to hoping this lands
> 
> 1\. holy shit is jefferson hard to write. finding the happy middle between loudass daveed!jefferson and weird shy incomprehensible rl!jefferson is just. what. who is this man.  
> 2\. madison talks about the [jay treaty ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Treaty) with england that hamilton promoted. jefferson mentions the [whiskey tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion#Whiskey_tax).  
> 3\. i have no idea when this takes place on the timeline aight they’re both in washington’s cabinet that’s all i know if i think about this too hard my head starts to hurt  
> 4\. (adams/jefferson is the Realest)
> 
> anyway! i knew i was going to come into this fandom and careen immediately into the wrong ships but there seem to be enough fics in the tag that i guess i’m not the only one. what up.
> 
> title directly from [our dear thomas' mouth](https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/friendship-wine-quotation)
> 
> i talk abt hamilton on [tumblr](http://www.madanach.tumblr.com/) and a lil bit less on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/anahaedra/), come say hi!!


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